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UN Court Upholds Two Bosnian Serbs' Genocide Convictions


The UN International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has upheld genocide convictions against two Bosnian Serbs for their roles in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

The January 30 ruling was the first final judgment for genocide by the Hague, Netherlands-based ICTY.

Vujadin Popovic, 57, and Ljubisa Beara, 75, were high-ranking security officers with the Bosnian Serb army that overran the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995 and murdered some 8,000 Muslim men and boys, Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

A small part of both men's 2010 convictions was overturned by the ICTY Appeals Chamber, but Presiding Judge Patrick Robinson reaffirmed their life sentences -- the harshest punishment ever handed down by the court.

It also upheld the verdicts for crimes against humanity for Drago Nikolic and Vinko Pandurevic, who were sentenced to 35 and 13 years, and reduced the sentence of Radivoje Miletic from 19 to 18 years.

Based on reporting by Reuters and dpa

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